EDITORIAL

OPEN SOURCE Dear Reader,

“Some news about Tesla patents tmrw at 10am” – this was what Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors tweeted to about 7.5 lakh of his followers on June 11th. The next day, the world welcomed with astonishment, pride and humility his move to open the company’s patent portfolio to the rest of the world, like he said in his blog, “in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology”. Now, how significant is this move by Musk? Naysayers have run it down calling it a trade bait, but most experts, analysts and observers of the global automotive industry have welcomed this “bold” move by Musk. What this would do to Tesla as an innovator and manufacturer of electric vehicles can’t be clear yet, but for a company, whose vision has been to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport, this has to be its greatest contribution yet to that cause. Musk’s move came from the reality that electric car programmes at all major vehicle manufacturers have not really kicked off the way it was expected or anticipated. By Musk’s own admission, such electric car programmes constitute an average of far less than 1 % of their overall vehicle sales! And that meant, despite the enormity of the global potential in EVs, or the talks about the need to curb vehicular pollution emitted by fossil fuel-based vehicles, not much was translating to real products. While this should make it interesting for manufacturers already in the EV game to explore newer possibilities, Musk’s move would likely encourage a host of EV startups world over – for they wouldn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Well, in most areas. But can this really be the jumpstart moment for an EV revolution? Hard to say, but positive changes are bound to be seen. For one, we could see automakers wanting to collaborate more with Tesla now on technologies that could change the way the world drives today. Musk is hoping Tesla would benefit more from a larger EV industry than just holding on to a lion’s share of a miniscule market. We’ll watch this space.

DEEPANGSHU DEV SARMAH

Editor-in-Chief New Delhi, July 2014

@deepangshu

autotechreview.com

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Volu m e 3 | Issue 7

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